Design Preview | The Skull Merchant Part 2

This looks amazing. Glad you kept the haste and tracking with a completely different approach on how drones work in chase. Good work

It looks actually very fun, I think she doesn't need anymore changes

This is much better, keeps her power feeling unique without it being overwhelming to new players due to to many statuses to keep track of.

this is incredible! the first design preview left me a little sceptical as a SM main despite really enjoying the concept, but this second design preview knocked it out the park. i cant wait!

What is a held interaction?

The changes sound great!

Looking forward to playing as and against this, hopeful the addons give her multiple options for playstyle. Sounds like you'll be able to build around your power or your m1 so far (Tracking speeds her up).

It sounds complicated in concept but, when you're focusing on one roles perspective of it. I don't think it's that hard.

My guess is there wll be stealth addons, since stealth isn't mentioned here.

I love the idea of bringing back something form launch skull merchant with disabling a drone and disappears. I think this would make her less boring to go against!

I liked how the last version was for the most part but this just seems like the same but a bit worse, besides removing the aura reading on skull merchant from hacking drones, that's a good change

Drones no longer down, instead only injuring and having to use her Drone Buddy to down — …Why? What is the point of this? Drones downing wouldn't be an issue so long as they were balanced accordingly. This just seems like unnecessary complexity, if you really wanna go through with this then at least make it so instead of claw traps injuring they just make it so the emp dart instadowns, so that it isn't balanced in a way that just encourages her to get free pressure from easy injuries.

Global detection power buffed to track walking survivors — Again, why? Seriously this whole mechanic should just be scrapped, it's either useless or provides value without needing to put in any effort.

Its actually looking quite good this time, but remember BHVR if you make it too hard to play the Killer's power at a low skill level you strangle the community that could form up around them. But I'm pleased to see that showing the Survivor they are being viewed by Global Detection is on the table this early and the change to scanlines to indicate crouching.

Questions:
How able is the Skull merchant able to set up a Drone in chase and directly go to damage the chased Survivor with it?

Would it be possible to use the EMP Dart for something else on non-tracked Survivors, since you give her a ranged people would like to fire it. I know I want to.

Since Scanlines are visible, what is going to prevent the Survivor in a chase from seeing where they are going and then going away to another place. Also what will prevent Survivors from just disabling all the drones I put up? before I can loop someone into them?

I don't understand how you guys claimed to try and declutter her kit and make her more simple to understand after coming to this iteration; it's far too bloated. However, I do think there are ways you can salvage parts of this kit while also keeping her player base, which have still been largely overlooked, in mind. Keep her drone focused playstyle of scanning survivors and switching the drones rotation to secure lock on stacks and the claw-trap, but remove all status effects (haste, hinder, broke, deep-wound, all that). However, you can keep her lethality tied to the drone buddy idea; as in allow her to charge a projectile that injures survivors but only if they are claw-trapped. I genuinely think this is the best way to go about it. It keeps her simple by decluttering her kit, removes the status effects that people found cheap to go up against, it preserves her general gameplay loop so that she remains recognizable to her player-base, and makes her lethality much more telegraphed and conventional to go up against.

Please reconsider the direction you're going; this iteration is far too bloated, and in order for her to get a down it takes way too many steps. It runs the risk of being too complicated to go up against, being good at 3 genning, feeling far too clunky due to switching between a drone and the skull merchant's perspectives, GD doing nothing against good survivors while being overwhelming against bad ones, and drone propulsion getting hard countered by lockers.

When I bought skull merchant I never expected to get 3 killers for the price of one! Get it done and move on with it already - atp it seems like you're just wasting time when you could've just deleted her and refunded us. But it's never that easy is it?

First, srry my redaction. English is not my main lenguaje.

Then, I have to congrats and thank the great work, it looks a lot better than before.

But I have some concerns. First, I liked Skull Merchant as an "track and slash" assassin, so I dont like her to have a proyectile to down survivors. Then, as other comments already said, she feels way too weak if fails the first Drone attack since she have no other tools, she lost the drone and, even in a hit, she need to be close to use it effectively. Finally, I think is too weak against group of survivors: if you ClawTrap one, then that only one is vulnerable and all the other ones can be pretty comfortable. All this problems makes me fear that she would have a playstyle similar to what it already was: 3 gening and stacking drones together, so if you fail one, you have a cover up.

My suggestions are:

• Instead of propulsing thereself, drone should shot the ClawTrap as a proyectile, causing the Broken status effect on the main targer, but also causing an EMP that give some negative effect on nearby survivors. This EMP also has a extended range that disables all nearby drones (including the one shooting). This way, you have more tools against grouping survivors, you make stacking not viable, and you dont feel like loosing everything by missing a drone.
• Instead of Skull Merchant having a proyectile to down survivors, give the ClawTrap a mechanic similar to Dog Hound: the Skull Merchant see a track that gives her Haste while running against that specific survivor. This way, she have a chase tool without loosing her M1 playstyle, she has more of this feeling of "predating" or hunting, and she gives a little more pressure when using far away drones.

Thats all, I hope this comment helps.

Thanks again for the hard work, It feels good to be listening as a player lol

I've been a skully main since the 2.0 rework, and this is the first suggestion I like. If I understand correctly, this EMP mechanic is supposed to work like a lazertag? If the drone, while charging the EMP, is going to stand still before attacking, this brings one of her most important techs as a clear and telegraphed mechanic, which is amazing! Also I believe this EMP mechanic would work flawlessly with the current skull merchant iteration, which would honeslty be a dream come true (if she also stopped being an F tier killer). Making the killer use the drone rotations midchase to give the survivor a clawtrap and, instead of just slowing down the survivor, give the skully an ability to down them with a lazertag will be fun as hell personally. If you also remove the ability for the survivor to remove the clawtrap themselves this would also allow for stealth drones to be useful again. This would keep the current skull merchant gameplay loop, which would make her mains happy, remove all the status effects that keep the survivors unhappy and provide clearer threats for the survivors to deal with!

I think this sounds incredibly fun, actually!
She does feel like she has an ample focus on creating a web of information, while creating new emphasis on the direct danger posed by her Tools of Torment!
Here are my thoughts:

Unique 2-Skillshot Position on the Roster:

I love love love love the idea that this is going to be a killer that has multiple types of skillshots/projectiles to use. That actually sounds really exciting, and provides a HUGE opportunity for a large skill ceiling.

That she might have multiple skill shots will put her in an incredibly unique spot on the roster, and if both projectiles have their own movements and patterns, it provides a lot of opportunity for skill mastery.

It truly feels like The Skull Merchant will have a full arsenal of high-tech tools (of Torment) at her fingertips to take down her prey!

Direct Confrontation, Slugging Concerns Minimalized:

This design also provides the opportunity to move her away from an M1 killer and makes her a lot more direct and confrontational, which is one of the biggest complaints she has received for years - that players dislike taking passive damage.

I appreciate the removal of the Drone's ability to down Survivors - this removes Slugging concerns, but also it does something else…

Full Kit is Encouraged to be Used:

I love that this design encourages the full breadth of her mechanics to be used. I think an issue with the live Skull Merchant design is that she can be played entirely like an M1 killer for the most part.

This iteration upon the last Design Preview makes her feel like the embodied fantasy of a high-tech hunter, as all aspects of her kit will need to be used to play efficiently! You can't down or use EMP Darts without the Drones, and even without the EMP Darts the Drones will provide passive information, creating a dependence cycle that demands all of the kit be used. And once using all of these different aspects, I'm certain players will feel quite powerful and wieldy!

Intuitive Counterplay:

I am actually a huge fan of seeing the comics depicting what appears to be the return of the eye-shaped tracking icon while Survivors are trackable or detected by Global Detection Event - I fully believe this will make her ability to track more intuitive, and prevents her from feeling like a killer that casual players will go down to out of sheer unawareness of how to use her power.

Additionally, if we're adding multiple skill shots/projectiles to Skull Merchant, on top of a global detection event, I think it's incredibly reasonable that Drone Scan Lines are made visible, and I'm very glad they're being tightened up visually to make it clear and obvious that you can try crouching under them.

Since we are shifting the Drones to be projectiles, they are now associated with danger. Visually, I like the thematic idea to make the Drone Buddy over her shoulder Drone-like: This will keep the idea of projectile-based danger in mind when players see the Drone Buddy, reducing the amount of visual information that players need to parse into logical quick reactions.

Concerns and Considerations:

• Do be mindful of not making the AoE EMP not feel too much like Unknown's projectile. This current version of Skull Merchant tows a very careful but unique multi-skillshot line in the roster. (A place that, let's admit it, could only be rivaled by the possible arrival of The Predator lol)
  
  
• Narrative Dissonance could foster Gameplay Dissonance:
  Make sure that the Drone Buddy is drone-like to evoke the idea of danger while reducing the amount of types of visual information Survivors need to parse while versing, but still make it visually distinctive enough from the placeable Stealth Drones so that, narratively, players can deduce that there's a reason why Drone Buddy can't just ram into players like the Stealth Drones.
  I think this will not just turn Drone Buddy into a distinctive, affectionate, and beloved pal in the Trials, but also create a gameplay narrative that makes it feel like her two-part skillshot makes sense from a gameplay standpoint.
  Otherwise, I fear narrative dissonance could spill over into gameplay dissonance: "Why can't I just down Survivors with the done on my shoulder?"
  Suddenly, she would start to feel convoluted rather than multi-tooled.
  
• It sounds like there's a possibility for Skull Merchant to place Drones in loops in such a way that Survivors may have no choice but to loop directly into them. I have concerns that the time it takes Skull Merchant to take control of a drone gives Survivors time to react before she can detonate the drone, but also doesn't take so long that she feels clunky to use power mid-chase. This is going to tow a very fine line.
  
  
• The Global Detection Event could potentially be incredibly oppressive and frustrating when 1 survivor is left standing. If the whole team is hooked/slugged and the Killer is determined to find the last one trying to sneak in for the save or trying to avoid detection, or if the Hatch is closed and the last remaining player is gunning for the Exit Gates while they're being patrolled…
  
  To compare this situation to current mechanics, Pinhead/Cenobite has a global power (Chain Hunt) that doesn't affect the last standing Survivor: Maybe it's worth considering disabling the Global Detection Event when one survivor is left remaining, similar to how Chain Hunts don't harass the last standing Survivor.
  It feels like a fair rule of thumb that all global Powers don't affect Last Standing Survivors.
  
  I don't know if this will honestly be such a big deal once implemented and commmunity counterplay is learned, but conceptually it does already give the Survivor in me a headache just thinking about going against it.
  
  
• DBD has 9 years of mechanical complexity and counting. It's expected that things will be reworked, but often many many changes can be super easy to miss unless you're an avid fan of the game and keep very close tabs on socials. But I'm sure we know many players only come in every several months.
  
  Such large reworks as this, while fine and necessary, can confuse players who pop in like twice a year (a lot of players are still confused on how Sadako works). I think it may be worth considering creating some sort of in-game notification system that indicates to players when mechanical reworks have happened since they last played: when Killer's Power (or Perk's functionality) has received an overhaul. Such as, some sort of ping/tab/notification on the Perk or the Power in the main menu and on the post-game tally menu (and a new tag/text that says "this Perk/Power has received an Update since you've last played." This could draw attention to reworks, and hopefully notify to players when mechanics don't work like how they remember from a year or two ago.

In response to some comments I've been seeing on different platforms, I do think that this version of Skull Merchant slightly shifts her identity, but in a way that is necessary. It does not shift her thematically, but in fact makes her identity stronger: A high-tech hunter whose tools you should be actually afraid of.

As one of the most vocally despised Killers in the game, shifting her identity is a huge part of the goal of this design rework, and I think something truly befitting Dead by Daylight without losing sight of the original fantasy of a High-Tech Killer is coming along here.

Overall, I'm LOVING the direction that this is going in! She sounds really exciting to play as, sounds significantly more intuitive, direct, and less frustrating to go against, and offers a skill ceiling that I'm honestly kind of salivating over thinking about mastering.

Only issue I have is the complexity.

I see a decent amount of positive feedback from people and a lot of negative feedback from SM mains.

BHVR is going to have to pick a side. SM mains want the old SM back, which was universally reviled, and most of the rest of the community wants something completely different to SM's original design.

These cannot co-exist, one side will get the opposite of what they want.