http://dbd.game/killswitch
Please Buff or Rework Sadako's Curse (Including a full rework concept)
My Experience
I revisited my old BHVR account exclusively to express how tragic it is that Sadako is so weak. I'm a huge fan of The Ring franchise and her release was like Christmas to me, but she just isn't fun. I know she can teleport, but crawling out of tv's is very telegraphed, and there's hardly a consequence for turning them off. I like that she has counter play, but if survivor's can deprive you of your only power leaving you with an m1, at that point I will simply
> Teleport to a survivor, injure, they get away because there's no tv where they ran to
> Teleport to a survivor, eat 2 pallets, have to leave
> Find the survivor I injured has somehow already healed
> Maybe find a few downs/hooks from injured survivors from the hit and run play style
> All gens are repaired
> I just play a recent, stronger killer
My Issues With Her Playstyle:
If I win playing as Sadako, it's because the survivors didn't run me through every pallet on the map, not because I'm just that good at teleporting. In fact, every strength Sadako has some fatal flaw that makes it practically inert.
- She has stealth, BUT she has a lullaby that ensures it never pays off.
- She has teleportation, BUT she can rarely make good use of it because crawling out of a television takes forever AND there's no consequence to disabling tv's.
- She has slowdown, BUT it's both generally not very effective, and doesn't help too much if momentum isn't being gained, and she isn't good at building momentum as her chase power is nonexistent.
I like her model, I like her chase music, I like everything about her presentation, but her gameplay makes me feel like I'm in Scary Movie just being dunked on by pallets 24/7, not so much the inevitable curse that she is. I even like the animation crawling out of the television, I can tolerate it being slow for that reason, there just has to be something else to make up for it.
Problems With Her Curse:
Yes, any number of buffs would do, but I'd prefer buffs that make her curse more fun, engaging, and faithful to the source material. Sadako's curse is easily the most important aspect of her character, so if she continues to have no chase power, I'd be okay with a much scarier and much more powerful version of the curse, so here are two of the most important aspects of the curse that are present in the movie that aren't in the game:
1. The curse moves from person to person.
It's a little inauthentic that tapes don't encourage survivors to pass them off to one another like in the movies. One of the scariest aspects of the curse is that to save yourself, you have to put someone else in danger. Passing the curse around like a hot potato would make her slowdown meaningful.
2. The urgent, inevitable countdown.
If you say "7 days" to anyone with a certain tone they'll know what you're talking about, yet the curse in-game is very abstract. It's some meter that increases in a circle, which feels less impactful than a countdown, and to make matters worse, as the killer, you're entirely unaware of the curse you're inflicting.
Of course, being able to see curse progress as the killer would be great too. I separated this from my rework idea to highlight the main issues I have with her design right now. As long as those issues are solved, I'm entirely happy. The rework idea is just to prove that the right rework can solve these issues.
Curse Rework Idea:
How the curse is applied:
The curse can only afflict one survivor at a time. Televisions playing the cursed tape will trigger the curse on any survivor that looks at it. Looking at Sadako while she's demanifested also triggers the curse. If a survivor is already cursed when someone else triggers the curse, the curse's countdown resets and affects the new survivor.
How the curse affects a survivor:
A countdown starts at "7," displayed strongly and clearly to all players including the killer over the survivor's icon in the HUD. After about two seconds, it counts down to 6, and so on. At each step, the survivor becomes increasingly hindered. When the clock hits 0, the survivor is downed (maybe injured depending on how strong it is in playtesting). At this point, the curse goes away.
How to counterplay the curse:
Televisions can still be turned off to prevent Sadako from teleporting to them, but make sure to look away from the tv while turning it off to make sure you don't get cursed. However, maybe it's smart to leave it on to easily move the curse to you if your teammate is in trouble, as turned off television's do not allow survivor's to be cursed. Regardless, tv's are still turned off anyways for a time when Sadako uses them to teleport. Maybe it's worth allowing the curse to get to 0 just to be rid of it for a while, as repeatedly passing the curse from person to person might mean slowdown on generator progress.
How to use the curse:
As Sadako, demanifesting now grants three benefits: stealth, stun prevention, and cursing survivors. If you notice nobody is cursed, sneaking up on somebody is a great way to get it rolling. Other survivors will naturally try to prevent the survivor you're chasing from being injured or downed by the curse, so it's unlikely it'll be a terribly effective chase power, but it's an incredibly useful power nonetheless, as it guarantees someone is going to be injured eventually once somebody fails to pass it around. For survivors, having to do generators, unhook, heal, etc, will make delaying the inevitable a big deal, and fairly intimidating and stressful, which may play into your advantage as the killer. Remember, afflicting a new survivor with a curse resets it, so if a survivor is close to being injured, it may be better to traverse the map manifested. But, a survivor could always move the curse anyways. BUT, maybe if you know where survivors are, you can take the risk and demanifest for the stealth, manifest around a corner, and potentially get a hit while avoiding the curse being moved. There's risk and reward everywhere in this system.
Benefits of the reworked curse:
- It's simple
- It's urgent and intimidating
- It's inevitable
- It's unique
- It's a more engaging experience for the killer as you can see the countdown happening AND strategically demanifest to afflict it
- Sadako feels more authentic to the movie
- Makes seeing Sadako scary (it should be because of the curse)
- Encourages survivors to think critically about television management
- It makes it especially tricky to traverse the map without looking at a TV or a demanifested Sadako, like a reverse ghostface it rewards skill in how you position the camera
- It'll be cool and scary to run from a killer you (situationally) shouldn't look at
- It adds much needed depth to manifesting and demanifesting.
- It has a far more dynamic risk reward system
- It's fun and I like it :)
Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. BHVR I would pay for this, if Sadako gets reworked with a similar or identical system I'm buying a 100 dollar auric cell pack. Heck, I'd buy multiple. I crave it BHVR, I'm on my knees.
Comments
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stop asking for a buff to the passive that makes survs vulnerable just for spamming teleports. these passives were annoying on the merchant, then on sadako, then on pinhead. you need to catch survivors and use hooks like it was intended
-3 -
"I know she can teleport, but crawling out of tv's is very telegraphed, and there's hardly a consequence for turning them off"
The part I put in bold is really all they need to fix. Create a consequence for holding tapes too long. They are too free.
That's all I ask.
2 -
This is my point, spamming teleports isn't fun for anyone. I don't love doing it, and I think it should be changed. Also, I'd argue passives can be fun, and I believe pinhead and plague are good examples of this.
-3 -
That would be very nice, yes, I agree, but it still wouldn't change how obtuse her passive is for newer players. I understand this is subjective, but I want to make it clear that buffing Sadako doesn't make her core design any less flawed compared to what it could be. Repeatedly using a teleport in order to use my passive doesn't feel very in-character or fun. For context, Pinhead can simply let his passive do its thing, Pig can just attach a trap when a survivor is downed, Plague can vomit on survivors as she's chasing them, but Sadako must go out of her way to use up tv's and time to teleport to random tv's in order to make her passive do anything, and even then she gets little to no tangible feedback of what she's doing, making it feel all the more useless. If her passive actually does work, it feels unsatisfying to me, as it feels cheap to just mori someone for free. It's anticlimactic, and the game is pretty much over afterwards. I almost don't want my passive to work because it kills survivor motivation and makes me feel far too mean for doing it.
-1 -
you literally write what you want to see who has what progress in accumulating your passive. you ask for buffs in the first sentence. and then everyone writes she tramples survivors. she does not need buffs, under no circumstances. you can knock the cassette out of the survivor's hands with a hit, it's not difficult. your job is to hit and use hooks, and not spam teleports, knock out cassettes and achieve an easy win
-2 -
" you can knock the cassette out of the survivor's hands with a hit, it's not difficult. "
This isn't the case right now, but it should be.
2 -
There are two different issues.
1. She's weak
2. She's questionably designed and unsatisfying to play
I mainly care about number 2. Number 1 is subjective, I don't care that much about buffs, though it'd help. Maybe it really is a skill issue, but when I look around tier lists it seems a bunch of people agree that Sadako doesn't have a lot to help her out. It might be that she tramples beginner survivors, and this makes sense because as I said, her power isn't intuitive. New survivors understandably don't get the confusing abilities she has. At my level, however, I can say from my experience, Sadako needs help. That's just my opinion, and I'm going to refrain from talking about buffs/nerfs any more than I have, as it isn't super important to me.-2 -
and it's good that it's not like that, because I remember matches for 40 mins. take the tape, hit, she teleports without chasing to the next, take the tape again, take the tape. this is not fun gameplay.
-1 -
And here's where we agree. Couldn't have said it better myself. Not that I think she's that much better as she is now. None of her reworks so far have done her real justice in my opinion.
-2 -
" because I remember matches for 40 mins."
This is also false. She would get kills really fast by condemn because you would also receive 2 stacks of condemn.
In what I am suggesting, you just lose the tape. The current version is to free. I am open to suggestions though.
2 -
Im surprised her stealth still has a lullaby as every other stealth killer does not, yet has extra m2 powers of some kind to catch people easier, yet can attack while having no lullaby, while she has to alert them with a lullaby then switch out of phase mode to attack. The only thing she has over them is "some" map mobility that can be prevented easier than dredges lockers, and a status effect that requires heavy spamming to activate.
6 -
No sadako win is "easy" lol. She is D tier.
4 -
Every week we have a new D-level killer. It was the trapper, then Freddy, then the merchant, now it's Sadako. Always dissatisfied, don't forget everyone has their own tier list
-2 -
I agree she feels weak at times, but in the right hands with the right strategy… Ohnonononono.
4 -
and this is true, I agree she can have successful games, I just think any player that excels at Sadako would get rewarded even more for playing a better killer. She's underwhelming in both strength and design. Like I said though I've had my share of games being destroyed by an excellent player using Sadako too, I know how it is x)
-2 -
You can't take the tape off the surviving hand with just one hit anymore, they took that away a long time ago. Sadako is extremely weak in her current state, she is a noob stomper. You can turn off half of her TVs on the map with virtually no punishment.
3 -
She is always low on EVERY serious tier list. She is not that strong a killer.
3 -
Sadako 1.0: Bad but ezi win againts noobs.
Sadako 2.0: Very strong but absolute free MMR againts noobs.
Sadako 3.0: Kinda bad but ezi win againts noobs.
There is nothing between. She is either gona be kinda too strong in SoloQ or bad.
0 -
She's good on like one map though!
0 -
did you think the rework concept solved some of her design issues?
0
