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    Design Preview | The Skull Merchant

    Member, Administrator, Community Manager Posts: 106
    edited March 25 in General Discussions
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    [Reposting the Design Preview here to help centralize feedback and discussion]

    Click here for Português Brasileiro, 简体中文, Français, 日本語, and Español.

    Today, we want to dig into a topic that we know many of you have been yearning to know more about: our vision for the future of The Skull Merchant! 

    REEVALUATING THE SKULL MERCHANT

    We know that Skull Merchant is a divisive Killer who, regardless of her performance in a Trial, carries a lot of history and strong feelings among players. 

    Many players feel she’s not fun to play against and her kit is exceedingly complex. This scares away potential Killers from trying her and makes it difficult for Survivors to consider counterplay without dedicated research. 

    As we look to reworking Skull Merchant, our aim is to: 

    1. Strike a balance between being fun to play as and against 
    2. Preserve the intel focus of her kit, while making it intuitive to understand for both sides 
    3. Move away from a passive power with limited player interactions and embrace a more active playstyle, while ensuring her power is compensated in interesting ways 

    Those last two points may be particularly difficult to hear for long-time Skull Merchant mains, but we feel it’s important to be clear about our intentions here. While the future we envision for Skull Merchant is quite different from her previous iterations, we feel this rework brings some exciting new tools of torment to the table! 

    DRONES 2.0

    Skull Merchant can deploy a Stealth Drone (she carries a total of 5), which scans its immediate vicinity and provides intel back to her. After a short activation period, the Drone gives off subtle audio and visual indications of the area being scanned, revealing any Survivors on the Radar who are caught by its two rotating detection zones. 

     Importantly, we’ve slowed their rotation speed slightly and toned down the visual intensity of these zones, removing the large scan lines to replace them with something more subtle. Namely, you'll see the direction of each detection zone as they rotate, but the detection zone itself is invisible. This gives Survivors an impression of the space that’s being actively scanned but requires them to proceed cautiously. 

    image-aaf071f6c3346-22ec.png

    While we know they had their supporters, the original scan lines were visually loud and often clashed with the rest of the game’s look and feel. The intent here is to strike a balance between giving Survivors just enough info to assess the threat (a subtle, rotating field of detection) without that threat overwhelming the space and feeling incongruous to Dead by Daylight’s visual identity. 

    DRONE CONTROL

    Once a Stealth Drone has been active for a short period, Skull Merchant can choose to take control of Drones from a distance. During this time, she becomes Undetectable, as her controlled Drone becomes the primary threat. These Stealth Drones move slightly faster than her base movement speed and consume a new resource – Power, unique to each Drone – while being controlled. 

    Power is consumed slowly as the controlled Drone idles and slightly more is consumed while moving. Skull Merchant is also able to use a burst of this Power to activate Drone Propulsion. This charged power sends the Drone flying forward at high speed, relative to how long it was charged. 

    SM-KD_ArticleAsset.gif

    Put simply: Stealth Drone go brr 

    Hitting a Survivor with Drone Propulsion causes them to lose a health state. If you hit a Survivor or collide with an object during this action, the Drone will be destroyed and return control to Skull Merchant. 

    With these new Stealth Drones, we want to give players something that feels familiar (using drones to gather intel) but also opens the door for unique skill expression opportunities (re-positioning Drones and Propulsion skill shots). Using technology to hunt her prey is core to Skull Merchant’s identity and so it’s important that we stay true to that! 

    We have opted to remove many of the background effects – Hindered, Haste, Lock On, Claw Trap – that were previously tied to these Drones, though. Rather than doing a little bit of everything with her Drones under layers of complexity, we want their use cases to be clear to Killers and Survivors alike, on the fly. Basically, if they’re static, they’re likely scanning for Survivors. If they’re moving, they’re a collision hazard. 

    DRONE HACKING

    Like Drones themselves, Drone Hacking returns with a greater degree of risk and reward. Like before, Drones can be disabled by Survivors by inputting a series of button presses while close. If a Drone is disabled, Skull Merchant’s aura is revealed to that Survivor, providing useful intel. If the Hack is failed, they are revealed by Killer Instinct and are prevented from attempting another hack for a short period. 

    The intention here is to introduce a greater degree of tension to hacking, while offering a clear way for Survivors to interact with Skull Merchant’s kit in a meaningful way. The intel reward is greater than before, but the risk of being revealed is more impactful. With intel at the center of this tension on both sides, we hope it makes this interaction easily digestible by players. 

    RED LIGHT, GREEN LIGHT

    In addition to her Drones, Skull Merchant has another power that ties into her Radar. While the name is currently TBD, let’s refer to it as a Global Detection Power. Once this power is charged and activated, a global warning plays for all Survivors. For a short period afterwards, any Survivor who actively sprints is revealed on her Radar. Of course, crouching, standing still, and hiding in lockers all prevent detection. Added to the intel provided by Stealth Drones around the map, this should help ensure Killers are easily able to keep tabs on Survivors’ movements. 

    In line with our rationale above, we want Survivors to have a clear understanding of what’s happening when they face Skull Merchant. Where the overlapping timers and status effects of Skull Merchant’s previous kit often obscured what the expected result of an encounter might be, structuring this power around a well-known game – red light, green light – provides a clear and readable threat, a clear benefit for the Killer, and a clear path for Survivors to try and overcome it. 

    TENTATIVE RELEASE

    We are currently evaluating a timeline for Skull Merchant’s rework but do envision it being quite far out as our primary focus is on driving quality-of-life updates. Once we have a timeline to share, we will be sure to keep you informed via future Design Preview updates. 

    Phew – that was a lot! How do you feel about this rework? We want to hear from you! Jump into our survey and share your thoughts right here:  https://forums.bhvr.com/home/leaving?allowTrusted=1&target=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.surveymonkey.com%2Fr%2FDPSM_DF_MAR%3Fvalue%3D%255Bvalue_value%255D

    See you in The Fog!

    The Dead by Daylight Team

    Post edited by ThatRyanB on
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    Comments

    • Member Posts: 21,270

      It seems like a good start to me.

      Making the Killer more skill expressive and more viable is good.

    • Member Posts: 216

      might get flamed but, this isn't a bad rework at all. People have been saying if you want skull merchant to work you would need to completely redo her kit from the ground up, so they did. This definitely feels like a mix between Hag and Artist, and I am excited to see how things go. If the drones are as stealthy as they say this could have potential to be a trap killer that is fun and even might be good!?

      that being said, the hacking change is annoying, it has even less risk now, and now can have a net benefit the survivors? The point of hacking a drone is to disable to drone, you don't need to tack on aura reading onto this, it just doesn't make sense. Full removal of the claw traps are also annoying, they could be redone, like after getting scanned by the global radar system, they get a claw trap which allows auto targeting of drones? again this is an out there Idea but a full removal of claw traps feels like a waste when they absolutely can serve some purpose in this new kit is somewhat sad.

      One issue I have is aesthetic, while balance wise, its perfect, and it sounds really fun, it just feels strange aesthetic wise.

    • Member Posts: 3,489

      If they succeed or not Skullie will always be hated that won't change. People see her they quit fun or not. I hope they make her more fun to play and play against!

      I don't have a problem with todays Skullie. The only problem I have is how she looks and walks like a p*rnstar and not a killer. I find that ridiculous. But I'm 47 I guess the teenage players have a different opinion.

    • Member Posts: 216
      https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3900534#Comment_3900534

      What are you talking about????

      This is a complete redesign of her power, why are you being somewhat weird about this

    • Member Posts: 198

      Please add a field to the survey so we can type suggestions and etc.
      I'll post here what I wanted to have added in there:

      It's hard to know if these changes are indeed good without any visual or even gameplay.
      On paper they seems to be pretty good.😁
      And thank you guys for this new direction of asking us what we think about this kind of big changes!😍
      Seriously.

      And talking about us helping you, there's another thing to add regarding this: asking for outside help is needed because sometimes you guys are so "isolated" in your own world that you let basic stuff unattended or make bad decisions about simple things and then one of us point that out and you guys at BHVR end up looking like fools, like "why we didn't thought about this? It's so straightforward. We dev this game and did this mistake/didn't saw/thought this basic stuff". This is not a critique on you guys specifically, but humans in general anywhere in the world. We need help from people outside our boxes. They can see better other things that we sometimes overlook or didn't noticed.
      I would say all that even if I was one of you guys in there at BHVR and would be pretty happy with someone pointed out things like that to me (I do get happy indeed when someone outside my box gives me an obvious tip with anything in my life).😁

      Thank you SO MUCH for going this direction!😍

    • Member Posts: 2,318

      This sounds like it can be pretty cool, I hope the killers end up liking it, and red light green light sounds fun as survivor!

    • Member Posts: 6,158

      This sounds promising imo. Her kit was very overwhelming and this makes it more straightforward.

    • Member Posts: 21,270
      edited March 24
      https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3900590#Comment_3900590

      Would you prefer her to retain her current identity and remain non-viable and hated or would you rather attempt to shift her identity to appeal to more players, whilst also increasing her viability and (possibly) lessening the hatred towards her?

      Genuine question with no ill will behind it.

      As someone who used to main Legion, I know what my own answer was in a similar situation.

    • Member Posts: 116

      I think the new power design is pretty interesting, but I have a few immediate thoughts or concerns about some details. All hypothetical of course, but based on the info given.

      1. Drones should be able to collide with a locker to damage a survivor inside.
        To prevent an easy way to negate the power if the killer is too far away. Like the very first iteration of Twins.
      2. Global Detection Power should have a lingering effect once a survivor stops sprinting.
        I can imagine it being pretty annoying if a survivor sprints-and-stops constantly to make the radar beep repeatedly and their marker flash on-and-off. It might also be nice if a survivor's blip on the radar had its intensity changed to indicate it's about to vanish.
      3. I'm a bit worried about the camera perspective of the drones.
        While third-person sounds like it might be nice on paper, I think it might make the drones too hard to shake off (already high off the ground, allegedly faster than killers, can probably move over pallets and windows). Designing it around first person might work better, but it's definitely an area to tread carefully.

      Overall I'm looking forward to seeing how new Merchant plays out. Most of all I'm wondering how the drones work. Is the dash more like Chucky, or Wesker? Will they have survivor collision, will pallets stun or destroy? I'll reserve judgement of those parts until I'm able to try her myself.

    • Member Posts: 297
      https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3900623#Comment_3900623

      With full respect, what identity are you talking about?

    • Member Posts: 2,017

      This looks promising. It will probably require a bit more fine tuning but for a preview it's not too bad.

    • Member Posts: 21,270
      https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3900623#Comment_3900623

      Maybe, maybe not. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

      What identity? She's currently a mess of different ideas.

      I am sure there were Legion players that loved OG Legion's, uh, riveting gameplay. That doesn't mean Legion wasn't objectively better off shedding that "identity"

    • Member Posts: 2,249

      My favorite thing about this whole rework is how much more simplified her power will be. The consequences of her whole kit never felt intuitive to me on the Survivor side. I’m glad her power will be more obviously self explanatory.

    • Member Posts: 2,517

      Tl;dr:

      • Aura reveal for only one Survivor instead of all widens gap between solo and SWF
      • Killer can not meaningfully influence/cause hacking failure
      • Global Detection either too impactful for camping, or irrelevant mechanic
      • Suggestions for these issues below

      I don't like the new hacking.

      If a Survivor is skilled enough they can do the hack without failing. As a Killer you can't affect it, outside of catching them in the act, in which case the penalty for failure (Killer Instinct) is irrelevant.

      The aura reveal for successful hacking is much weaker for solo Survivor players than SWF on comms. At minimum the reveal should be visible to all Survivors. Even if no other changes are made, this one is a must. It has been said many times in the past that you want to lessen the gap between SWF and solo. By giving the aura read to only one Survivor you widen the gap.

      My suggestion:

      • Hacking a drone turns it friendly, and it reveals the Killer to all Survivors instead (if the Killer is scanned by the scan lines). The drone is also revealed to all Survivors (aura)
      • Failing a hack empowers it temporarily, giving it bonus speed when controlled
      • Controlling (rather, attempting to) a hacked drone causes it to explode in an area, similar to Freddy pallet explosion. The explosion radius could be the visible part of the scan lines, that would make it easier to play around for both inexperienced Survivors and Killers
      • Drones can't be placed directly next to generators or hooks (a detonation of a hacked drone should not be able to hit you while repairing)

      As a Survivor you can use the drones to detect the Killer if you succeed, but it becomes a remote controlled mine instead. This can be good, but it's also risky. It might be better to not a hack drone, depending on where it is placed.

      Same for Killer. Do you want to detonate the drone to not reveal yourself, pre-emptively? Or do you leave it, to potentially damage a Survivor later?

      This makes drone placement and the decision to hack them more strategic.

      Radar power has the issue that while it is active you can proxy camp efficiently. You can see Survivors going for unhooks early, or force them to walk. Walking means the hook progresses more, which makes camping more effective. If the duration is too short to deal with camping then it will likely not be an impactful mechanic.

      If it activates with no one on hook then Survivors will just stay on generators. At best they walk to the next one and lose a bit of time. In any case, it doesn't sound like it adds anything particularly exciting in terms of gameplay. At worst it makes the game less fun because of more camping.

      My suggestion:

      • When active, all drones start homing in on the Survivor furthest from the Killer (slowly)
      • The longer you camp the less drones you have near the hook, which makes tunneling off the hook harder
      • They move faster if the targeted Survivor is sprinting (sprint away from the hook to help whoever goes for the unhook by moving the drones away)
      • Being scanned by a drone speeds up all drones
      • Drones should also get red glowing eyes while the effect is active (purely cosmetic, but it would look cool)
      • Some kind of UI element (on the HUD, or under the Survivor's feet) shows the affected Survivor the effect is active on them

      If pathing is too difficult, let them phase (maybe also scan) through walls. Explain it as some kind of experimental technology that makes them able to do that. When the effect ends, destroy all drones inside walls (or just all drones in general).

    • Member Posts: 2,318
      edited March 24

      you can probably give her undectable for her drones zones, and haste for red light green light, realistically. I don’t want her to be bland. I want a challenge, but also someone that can be played around that rewards both sides for making the right calls at the right times.

      It can make people think about what perks they want to bring hopefully shake up the meta a little bit.If she becomes a popular pick. Idk I don’t see a lot of survivors that would pick the right stuff to go against, and that can be a huge W for SM killers.

      I’d start there, give people time to adjust on both sides. Buff as needed. I personally can’t wait to see my teammates and possibly myself getting hit in the head with a drone. I think that will breathe some life into her, and make it kind of funny to be honest for you to laugh at on both sides.

      Edited to say: maybe a dazed effect or concussed if they get a sick headshot with the drones on a survivor. Makes like their screen a little blurry with like loud ear ringing noises. Rewards skill.

      Post edited by HeroLives on
    • Member Posts: 949
      edited March 24

      First of all, 10/10 artwork.

      Now, at first looks fine, i understand that SM mains are going to get annoyed (understandable) because they change SM core gameplay. Sadly SM is hated and unpopular so this is going to help (if she has a good rework) more than hurts.

      My humble oppinion in short.

      1º Pilot drone seems a 10/10 idea to me to play as. If done right can be really fun.

      2º Hacking a drone is not a risk reward. If you do it right (how can you miss??) you see and share position of killer, if you miss (wich will probably happen because she is comming to you) killer instinct will do nothing. I would rather do like singularity, dron off for X seconds, wich already hurts.

      3º AoE red light/green light, seems quite bad unless it last like 10 seconds. If you are far, you just need to wait, if you are chasing someone, does nothing because you already see that survivor. If it last some time may be you can force someone to move and detect it. But still not very good. May be if it slows ONLY the one that miss that minigame? (Need to see more before this).

      4º Good to see stealth drones back, i like that "soft set up" killer style.

      I like where this is going but with some extra polish.

      Also, please new chase music and mori. More industrial and less jungle bongo 2 second loop.

      Hope you guys have a good day. :)

    • Member Posts: 443

      Poor Pixel Bush. He's gonna be heartbroken :-(

    • Member Posts: 7,105

      Completely onboard with this, and for those saying she'd lose her ability as a trap based killer, no she wouldnt. You can still set up an area and now the scan lines are less visible, meaning theres a better chance a Survivor runs into your territory.

      Theres also a more interesting back and forth that happens where instead of Skully placing a drone and doing the cha cha slide until a Survivor gets a claw trap, theres a little mindgame being if shes gonna take control of the drone or not, and theres actually dodging the drone as well. Its a great opportunity to showcase skill expression from both sides.

      Now the only issue I have with this is her stealth, she should have a more on demand way of getting into it to really fit the "Apex Predator" sort of identity that was initially mentioned at launch. So what I propose is something Ive said before and Ill say it again, giving her a crouch that has a leap type attack would be a great way of doing this.

      Maybe when within a drones radius, she moves faster while crouching, or the leap insta downs, just something thats threatning enough to convey that this is her playground but theres still counterplay. Doing something like controlling a Drone to make a Survivor run into you and leap onto them unexpectedly is just one of the many things she would be able to do with this sort of change.

      These changes listed and the ones I proposed of course arent final, but they are definitely promising and a much healthier approach than simply tweaking numbers of current Skully, since theres absolutely no way to balance her while also making her fun to play as and against in her current state.

    • Member Posts: 1,339
      https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/441096/design-preview-the-skull-merchant

      will survivors on generators be revealed with red light green light because if they aren't there is no point also it gives wayy to much leeway to survivors you should make it that the drones start roaming during that period and will hit survivors when detected if they start running. you can even have survivors try to end red light green light earlier by having them disable drones and if not it lasts longer

    • Member Posts: 31

      Throwing my stance on this out there as a huge fan of the skerchant iteration we had before the soft killswitch. I've been extremely onboard with a lot of BHVR's recent balancing changes and reworks, but this one really misses the mark. There are a lot of problems:

      Most importantly is that I really just don't believe that there's any balance iteration of these drones that strikes a middle ground both sides can actually enjoy. The core thing a lot of survivors complained about with our last real iteration was that the drones felt like "free hits" on a lot of loops that they expected to be safer against what was primarily an m1 killer. Whether or not you think this was the case, I don't see this power being possible to implement in a way that provides actual consistent use while avoiding that issue. Major restrictions that do things like prevent drones from acting as traps/hazards on loops will obliterate their utility and anything that fails to restrict that utility will just make survivor mains write off this rework as more of the same. I don't particularly like the direction of pov skillshot killer either, but besides my personal preferences on it, it seems like a really inherently unhealthy direction to try to take a killer that is still ultimately based around area control. Setting that core issue aside for a second, the common "twins 3.0" criticism has some real merit here. If some major balancing point does end up preventing the obvious drone placement of "set on loop, wait for free hit or 50/50," then it sounds like the only major point of differentiation here is that there are some additional downsides to offset the fact that you'll more or less have half a dozen victors ready to scurry around the map. Even if that does end up balanced instead of becoming a second Dracula v. Spirit situation, I just don't understand why that's supposed to be a positive outcome for a killer that used to have her own identity. Scanlines and radar are a watered down version of killer instinct for standing near an inactive twin, disarming drones is a slightly different version of kicking victor, and dodging a small player-controlled hazard that charges a leap/dash is… the obvious parallel.

      Second, every part of the Global Detection Power concept feels half-baked. What is this supposed to accomplish outside of the two-week span where people are still jumping in and learning what she does now in reasonable MMRs? This is just going to be a button that prevents survivors from pathing uniquely in specific situations, but forcing them to take the safest and most obvious route because you can see them— and they know full well ahead of time that you're going to see them— is already what good survivors do in the overwhelming majority of cases anyway. Banking on survivors regularly failing to stop holding shift after hearing the audio cue specifically set to tell them not to hold shift is at the same level of nonsensical as considering failing drone disarms to be a reasonable and consistent part of her gameplay.

      Finally, I think the proposed changes to how drone scanlines are displayed are really indicative of just how little familiarity with skerchant, her previous issues, and her reputation is at play in this rework. I have never aired on the side of hating this killer (having only played as and against the pre-killswitch nerfs), but it doesn't take me any time at all to recognize what a bad idea that is. So much of skerchant's history has been marked with basic misunderstandings about how her kit works and how she interacts with the game at large, even on the side of killers advocating for her as meta-defining before the gen kick changes. The last thing she needs is the removal of one of the few clearly communicated elements of her kit if you're trying to repair this reputation.

      tl;dr: I see no upsides to this new direction for Skull Merchant. Removing her current identity for the sake of a rework that still differentiates her from others killers would be one thing, but this is the worst of all worlds. Every major issue with her old kit is still here, with the new problem stapled on top that this would make her extremely similar to an existing, relatively unpopular killer. Behavior was not cooking with this one.

    • Member Posts: 1

      The Rework overall seems like a relatively positive approach towards taking her into a different direction but at the cost of her identity which I don't think is necessarily a good thing.

      The claw traps and lock on are a core aspect of her identity as well as the utilisation of scan lines to create expressive gameplay for the Skull Merchant player and interactive counterplay from survivor stand point too via using hacking or crouch.

      As this is the case at the very least the idea of adding both scan lines back and a type of stealth mode back to the drones is certainly a positive change whilst making their rotation slower.

      Additionally the drone control feature does look promising but is at the same time something that could remove a part of her identity if too heavily focused on and therefore should be complimentary to the current state of her power that is focused more on the Lock on and claw trap system.

      The plethora of different effects created by the drones namely the haste and hinder effect are the ones that can cause a large amount of frustration as they seem the most out of place for how this killer has been designed in a manner that focuses on gathering information, trapping and scanning survivors and then moving in for the down.

      My suggestions/feedback:

      • Focusing on the reward of the lock on and claw traps (For example, the drone control system can reward the skull merchant by making it so that survivors that aren't already claw trapped whether they are healthy or unhealthy become claw trapped and if they already are claw trapped then they can indeed lose a health state. This would offer a fresh new addition and usage of her power whilst still focusing on what makes skull merchant someone who uses her tools of torment)
      • Rather than adding so many more new layers and secondary powers to the skull merchant, implementing some of these interesting suggested changes of this rework to her current kit and replacing some of the prior features that would make her complicated would perhaps be a better idea (For example, making it so that instead of adding a new "global detection system" , making it so that at lock on 1 provides the information that this system would do on a scanned survivor, at lock on 2 the drone could provide information akin to how it does now and at lock on 3 the effect of 2 would carry on and the survivor would become claw trapped as well - this all being related to being scanned by a drone which the skull merchant can still manually change the direction of the scan rotation to allow skill expression and achieve the aforementioned effects)
      • The deployment of drones still giving skull merchant undetectable is fine and a characteristic that can be considered as part of her identity in my opinion but I'm regards to drone interaction and hacking the idea suggested in the rework from Risk reward does sound promising in the regard that successfully hacking a drone can make survivor see the skull merchant aura, but the act of failing a hacking would not benefit the skull merchant in a proportional way due to her power already being focused on gathering information. So I would suggest that her current reward of a survivor becoming claw trapped on a failed hacking as it currently does in this game state is a more fitting reward as it is more centred on her power and facilitating it in conjunction with the controlling drone feature that is suggested in this rework.

      My final point would be that finding a middle ground between making current and long term skill merchant players such as myself to be able to enjoy the reworked skull merchant by retaining her core identity and allowing skill expression through technique such as "laser tagging" is equally as important as reworking her in a way that makes her more accessible to play and play against whilst also allowing her to be more fun and enjoyable through new mechanics such as the suggested drone control (which once more I think is a great idea if tied in to her identity in a meaningful way). Not diverging from her current kit with tools such as scan rotation, scan lines, lock on level states and claw traps and focusing on the aforementioned as her reward or new tools to accentuate her reward would also help greatly in simplifying her power.

      Hopefully this helps and although this is just my opinion I hope it will be taken in consideration one way or another and hope that the rework ends up being great : D

    • Member Posts: 2,259

      https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/441096/design-preview-the-skull-merchant

      Overall: positive direction. I don't think there is anyway forward for SM other than a rework of this level.

      Some notes:

      1: You discuss the understandable desire to maintain her feel. One of SM's biggest issue is that she is a killer with a detection power, who came out in a time when aura reading was readily accessible. Her ability to find and track survivors is easily replicated by a few perks (and probably stronger as the survivors don't get a warning).

      2: Many players feel she’s not fun to play against and her kit is exceedingly complex.

      The not fun to play against is true, the exceedingly complex part though is overrated by how boring it is.

      To use Xeno as an example: learning to place his turrets is exciting. You have to debate how far to go, what a good spot to place them is and, if you succeed, are rewarded with a cool flamethrower impact. Even simple things like Unknown's hallucinations and Dredge lockers are far more engaging on the concern that a sudden teleport can make a simple action dangerous. Skully always feels like 'eh, there's a drone, I guess I'll turn it off or whatever'.

      3: Drone's 2.0. The invisible lines. I agree on the need to clean up the visual clutter, but this seems to go against the idea of making her power easy to understand. It feels like the invisible lines will have no impact on experienced players, but potentially a massive impact on newer players.

      4: Drone missiles: this makes sense.

      5: Drone Hacking

      The intention here is to introduce a greater degree of tension to hacking

      Sorry, but you can't make a simple button pressing game tense beyond a few plays. You can't really make any mini-game that the other side can't interact with tense beyond a few games.

      Also, disable + aura read? That makes disabling each and every drone such a no brainer that it pulls all tension away.

      If instead we aren't disabling any longer, we're just hacking for intel that might not be that useful, and the drone could potentially become a missile, then that could be really engaging.

      6: Red light, Green Light:

      I know game developers hate to hear this but: meh. It goes back to my first point. We've already got tons of aura reading and the amount we currently have is already leading to some unengaging gameplay.

      How about a Red Light, Green Light Mode that activates on and off on the Drones as her "ultimate" power akin to Nightfall. During this she can change the lights, in red light she moves slower but her drones will auto target anyone running, while in green light the drones do nothing but she moves normal/faster.

      7: Final minor note on writing clarity. You alternate between calling them Stealth Drones and just Drones. Introducing them as Stealth Drones implies there must be some other type of drone (I kept expecting to read about it).

      It would be if Trapper's traps were called Ground Traps, this would imply there was at least one other type of trap he had access to.

    • Member Posts: 3,212

      I think it's decent, but I'm not excited by it. Its primary appeal lies simply in that it's something different than old SM. As others have pointed out, it just seems like it makes her into the Twins, which isn't exactly a popular model, to say the least.

      I hear that is\t removes her uniqueness, but that uniqueness was uniquely despised. I know that's not what SM mains want to hear, but I think the one thing that is (or should be) patently obvious is that old SM isn't coming back. They haven't done what they've done just to roll it back; there is no future for Skull Merhcants past.

      As was said the post above, the only path forward for her is/was total overhaul. I sympathize with people who really loved her "identity", even if I can't understand it. But this was always going be a teardown and rebuild, and expecting another round of tweaks would have been cope.

      Even an approximation of old SM is persona non grata for like 90% of players.

      As for me, if they were going to rebuild her power, I would have preferred they went even further than to make her an analog to another existing killer. Like take the house all the way down to the foundation and build a whole new killer power (down to ditching the drones, even).

      But as the Drones are staying, a couple thoughts:

      Drone Hacking: make the minigame properly challenging - like something at least on the level of Merciless Storm x Madness - and have failure not just reveal you, but have the drone pursue (like Knight's guards) you for a set time while continuing to reveal you. Maybe spice that up by making SM undetectable only to you (like Plaything) while in pursuit.

      Keep the aura read on for success, but make it appreciably harder and give failure some actual teeth - like you failed, she can see you, is almost certainly coming for you, and you won't hear her coming. Might introduce a mild panic, lol.

      Invisible scan lines: I like the sentiment behind this, but it will make life disproportionately more difficult for new players.

      But as underwhelming as it is, there is a chance I might actually play as her in this new configuration. On occasion.

    • Member Posts: 3,461

      I like the Global Intel Power. Thats neat. Hacking Needs to be more challenging. There is nothing "High Reward" about it. Its all High Risk. Shooting drones at people is cool but at the expense of being like Twins. No thank you please. I am not a fan of that design but I do appreciate trying to come up with something more skillful.

      Maybe have something that causes one or 2 of the drones to rotate around the map on their own?

    • Member Posts: 2,110

      These are my thoughts.

      Tracking via Drones:
      • Glad this one didn't change. If it stays like before (letting you know that they're there and maybe even giving you an audio hint), this part will be fine.
      • Lock On and Claw Traps being removed is kinda weird. I hope that changing the drone rotation will stay.

      Drone Propulsion:
      • I kinda like this. As someone who didn't play SM before, I won't miss the old static drones. So, all fine here imo.
      • I just hope that she will be able to aim the drones before sending them towards survivors/cancel the send-off.

      Drone Hacking:
      • Unless the hack is being omega-buffed to be insanely difficult, revealing SM's aura after is dumb and highly abusable by survivors. Not a fan.

      Red Light, Green Light:
      • This is Grandpa's Sonar from TCM. It will probably not be that useful, but funny regardless.

      Final Thoughts:
      • While these changes seem relatively fine to me, removing Claw Traps and Lock On (and maybe the Change Drone Rotation mechanic) probably wasn't the best move.
      • They could have stayed in some way, for example removing status effects aside giving Claw Trapped survivors Broken until removing it and making it so drone hacking removes stacks instead of full-on aura reveal would be fine too probably.

    • Member Posts: 123
      edited March 25
      https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/441096/design-preview-the-skull-merchant

      Trickster/Skull don't deserve a rework.

      They're very different cases than Freddy, please, not doing it...

      They deserve adjustments/BUFFS , period... let them rework their ideas to CREATE ANOTHER KILLER.

      I'm Main Trickster/Skull, I don't like the idea of ​​removing everything that made me main them.

      ——————

      About the Trickster rework, make a brown addon that reverts to the old Trickster, and that's it. The Killer should be 4.6m/s
      (4.4 killers is bored)

      And about Merchant, please … let her make all the drones spin at the same time + speed in rotation or return of 2 lights.

      image.png
      Post edited by Jtflorencio on
    • Member Posts: 2,342
      edited March 25

      So to make sure I am understanding

      The drone portion

      • You know the direction the scans are going but never where the actual scans are as survivor (Why? Is the threat that small for getting scanned that seeing the lines doesn't matter?)

      • The SM can take over a drone and use it to crash into a target to damage it destroying the drone in the process

      • The scans on drones no longer give hindered, haste, lock on or claw traps - what about broken?

      • Drones have limited power so they cannot be used for excessively long camping (Exit Gates, Hooks) - How do they recharge? Do they just start with a full charge before placing them?

      • Drones only activate to be flown if a survivor walks into the zone triggering it (Can someone clarify on this I feel I am misunderstanding this bit)

      • The radar as far as I understood is replaced with "Red Light Green Light" During green light which is announced globally if you are sprinting or performing a rushed action you show up on her radar / are revealed. This is fully separate from the drones.

      So to summarize it she has two abilities that do not interact with each other. Her drones are placed on the map and the two functions they have is to be placed to eventually be used to attack a survivor and if a survivor walks into the scan lines they are revealed to the killer while also being informed they were shown to the killer. Additionally she just has an alt power button that scans the map and shows survivors on her radar.

      I am not going to debate on the old power but the new power itself I actually like the idea and I felt like this is how she should have functioned in the first place at least with the drones. I feel the new design is a good step in the right direction making her more clear on what she is supposed to do. Although I can't help but notice her drones and the global scan doesn't interact with each other. She also doesn't have undetectable which seemingly enough people don't like seeing that go.

      What if Skull Merchant built up a meter by attacking survivors with drones or scanning survivors? Once that meter was full she could activate Red Light Green Light but it had Undetectable with it? I feel just aura reading on its own is kind of weak and survivors are already told this is happening which is fine. I feel though there are too many tells for survivors to care if their position is revealed and adding paranoia to that would be ideal. If you standing still made you question if you were letting SM get closer to you I feel that would be a great way to add undetectable without overwhelming her kit. No haste, no hindered, no exposed or broken. Her loop revolves around avoiding the drones and then her when she eventually goes into "Hunt" mode.

      Overall I like the direction of the rework but she very much on paper reads as extremely weak and not much of the power really seems to synergize with each other - I would have to see a visual example of this killer to really get on board with it.

      tl;dr

      I like the idea but

      Drones - You would have to be opportunistic with them to damage people due to battery life. As for how they scan I won't comment on.

      Global Scan - Extremely weak because it informs everyone you are using it without any extra benefits other than they know they are visible if they move - This should have undetectable to SM or oblivious to survivors affected otherwise this just seems like a way for SM to bait herself into an extended chase against good survivors who want to be chased.

      EDIT - I missed this part

      If a drone is disabled, Skull Merchant's aura is revealed to that Survivor,

      Why? How did I miss this. Why would you add such a massive downside when the drone is already getting disabled. SM has no presence on the map in this rework outside of remoting a drone. It makes no sense to reveal their aura.

      Post edited by Dustin on
    • Member Posts: 1,353
      edited March 27
      https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/441096/design-preview-the-skull-merchant

      I was going to do a post about my opinion on the changes, but JCglitchmaster posted a video that explains pretty much all of what I was going to say, so here it is:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypCiWJ8VJo4

      The only thing I would add is that you should be able to still control the drones even if they are hacked, or then you would have the exact same problem the current Skull Merchant has while facing a team that knows what is doing and hacks every single one of your drones, except that now you don't have anything else to compensate for your main power being completely countered (no anti-loop, no haste, etc.).

      Post edited by Batusalen on
    • Member Posts: 1,846
      https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/3900534#Comment_3900534

      While I can't comment on your latter half, I do agree that no matter what is done with SM she will always be hated, especially if her kit gets completely reworked into something new for players to try and figure out, at least for a few weeks.

      I've already tried playing SM in every way I could think and still got constant DCs. Heck, if you check comments on the steam announcement you'll see plenty of people already dismissing her and saying 'until she's deleted I'll DC, should have never come out of testing to begin with' and other similar comments. And that's just the loud ones.

      As far as the redesign goes, I think it's great but I also agree it kills her identity and practically makes her into a alternate Twins, which would make it harder to justify running Twins if SM ends up doing much better consistency wise.

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